page_title: History of Basque whaling
section_title: Peak and decline
hierarchical_section_title: History of Basque whaling / Newfoundland and Labrador / Peak and decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Northern Whale Fishery (Zorgdrager, 1720) Subject: Whaling ships Tag: Vessels
context_page_description: The Basques were among the first to catch whales commercially, as opposed to aboriginal whaling, and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain, when writing about Basque whaling in Terranova, described them as "the cleverest men at this fishing". By the early 17th century, other nations entered the trade in earnest, seeking the Basques as tutors, "for [they] were then the only people who understand whaling", lamented the English explorer Jonas Poole.
  Having learned the trade themselves, other nations adopted their techniques and soon dominated the burgeoning industry – often to the exclusion of their former instructors. Basque whaling peaked in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, but was in decline by the late 17th and early 18th centuries. By the 19th century, it was moribund as the right whale was nearly extinct and the bowhead whale was decimated.
context_section_description: An intensive era of whaling began when peace was established after the Valois marriage (1572). An average of fifteen ships was sent to Terranova each year, with twenty being sent during the peak years. Aguilar (1986), referring to the number of both Spanish and French Basque ships, said twenty-thirty galleons would seem fairly accurate. Thomas Cano (1611) said more than 200 ships were sent to Terranova, although this is an obvious exaggeration.
  Ships from Red Bay alone sent 6,000–9,000 barrels of oil to Europe every year during the peak of exploitation, while a further 8,000 or 9,000 barrels was produced in St. Modeste, Chateau Bay, and other harbors. Each ship averaged 1,000 barrels a season, a cargo that rivaled the Spanish galleons bringing back treasure from the Caribbean for sheer monetary value. So, on average, a minimum of 15,000 barrels of oil would have been produced each year, which would have involved a catch of at least 300 whales, or twenty per ship.
   
  By the 1580s, whaling was in decline, as ships returned to port half empty. This decade also coincided with the period when the king needed Spanish Basque ships for his armadas. The trade was particularly affected in 1586, 1587, and 1588, when Spanish Basque ships and sailors were detained in preparation for the 1588 armada against England. The threat of such detentions continued to undermine Spanish Basque whaling into the 1590s and early 1600s. Although whale stocks may have had a chance to increase in the 1590s and early 1600s with the diminution of the Spanish Basque fleet, it appears the French Basques may have taken up the slack of their counterparts of northeastern Spain. In April 1602, Saint-Jean-de-Luz alone sent seven ships to carry out whaling in Terranova. Other factors, such as attacks by hostile Inuit (which, according to parish records, resulted in at least three instances of fatalities between 1575 and 1618), piratical attacks by the English and Dutch, and the opening of the Spitsbergen fishery (see below) may have also played a part in the decline.
  By 1632, they were finding it safer to hunt for whales out of the establishments at "Côte-Nord", such as Mingan and Escoumins and even as far south as Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River. Despite this, Spanish Basque expeditions continued to be sent to Labrador, with voyages documented in 1622, 1624–27, 1629–30, 1632, and later. As late as 1681 the port of Pasaia alone sent twelve whaling galleons to Terranova. The end came in 1697, when the Basques (apparently only the Spanish Basques) were prevented from sending out whaling expeditions to Terranova, while the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) finally expelled them from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Later the French Basques still sent whaling expeditions to Terranova, often basing them at Louisbourg.
caption: Whaling in the Basque fisheries (1720)
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